Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Is Glen Perkins the Old Maid of Baseball?

Remember playing Old Maid when you were a kid? You don't want to get stuck with the Old Maid card, and if you have it, you rely on the other players to take it away from you. No one wants the Old Maid.

Earlier in the season, the Twins tried to trade Glen Perkins to the Padres for 3B Kevin Kouzmanoff. This got many Twins bloggers and Twitter-atzi (the correct term is "tweep," but I hate that word for some reason) licking their chops. Rightly so -- the Twins need a third-baseman, and they have a slight glut of pitching. Fair enough.

However, the Padres wanted more and wound up trading Kouz to the A's. Ok.

When I first read the news, my very first thought wasn't "oh bummer, Kouz would've been great for the Twins." That was my second thought. Nope; my first thought was "oh crappola, Perkins is still on the team." It's kind of sad that I immediately went there, but I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one who thought that.

Why? It's not that he's an inconsistent pitcher. There are plenty of those who don't stir a ton of ire.

It's because he's a selfish baby. Now I don't want to be overly mean, but sometimes I gotta call 'em like I see 'em. He mysteriously claims a shoulder injury after, not one, but two rotten outings. So either he failed to say something before the games because he was only interested in doing what was best for him, or he was making excuses for lame performances. Doesn't even matter why; it's poor either way. Although, the Twins sent him to a specialist to figure out what was going on, who didn't find anything wrong.

But then to top it off, after the Twins sent to the minors to rehab that said injured shoulder, he cried and bitched that it ruined his major league service time to make him eligible for arbitration. Way to piss off the bosses, dork.

So now both the Twins and Perkins are stuck. Perkins's reputation precedes him in any trade negotiations, and teams are leery of his antics. And if he stays with the Twins, he'll have some 'splainin' to do -- to the team and the fans.

From where I stand, if he's on the Twins Opening Day roster, he'll have to absolutely burn it up in order to win me over again. It might happen; I have my doubts.

A true story about that picture of Perkins's face: I was with Betsy when she took that photo. We were at one of the Twins Unplugged events. After the Q and A session, in which she took like a million pictures, she talked Cuddy into performing a card trick for her. As I was trying to sneak my way into a spot to take pictures, I stomped directly on Glen's foot. I apologized, but he gave me the stink-eye anyway. Ex-cuuuuuse me!

4 comments:

• I have no recollection of how to play Old Maid, and now I wish I did, since you mentioned it. I know I played it...and I must have won a lot since I am an Old Maid.• Three Minnesota boys on the Twins. One is a national legend already. One is a fan favorite who likes to blog & hopefully has healed. One is a spoiled brat that managed to make his home state fans proud for awhile...until he didn't. • Perkins had the reputation at the U of being a bit of a brat, but supposedly, he grew up as he went through the Twins system, until he regressed...a lot.

I agree with you 100 percent on the Perkins issue. He lost major points with me, and many others, this past season when he came out after bad outings and said he was hurt. Then he lost even more by nearly filing a grievance. And I believe he turned down a Twins invite to the Dome ceremony... or whatever it was. I'm not a fan.